News | Sunday, 19 April 2009

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The cancer that stole Jade Goody

Reality TV star Jade Goody’s death in March from cervical cancer at the age of 27 prompted Prime Minister Gordon Brown to describe her a “courageous woman” who raised awareness of cervical cancer to the benefit thousands of women across the UK.
Goody’s illness had featured in the media on a daily basis when she allowed TV channel Living to follow her treatment as well as documenting her wedding to partner Jack Tweed a month before her death.
Her treatment and hair loss were captured on film and in a series of newspaper interviews, prompting criticism from some quarters that she was cashing in.
Speaking to The Sun newspaper in February, Goody admitted she was doing it for the money, but claimed she was thinking beyond the reality career that would die with her. “It’s not to buy flash cars or big houses. It’s for my sons’ future if I’m not here. I don’t want my kids to have the same miserable, drug-blighted, poverty-stricken childhood that I did,” she said.
During her first outing in Big Brother, the former dental nurse who grew up in a poor working class family hit the headlines as a young woman with shockingly poor general knowledge.
Her row with Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty in the 2007 edition of Big Brother attracted 45,000 complaints, with both the press and public describing Goody’s behaviour as racist.
After a string of tearful apologies Goody rehabilitated herself through a third Big Brother stint on the Indian version of the show. It was while taking part in the show that she was confronted with the news that she was suffering from cervical cancer.
Goody would go on to spend the final months of her life battling her illness under the public gaze, with the media devoting generous coverage to the sad decline of a terminally ill young woman.

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